And The Bells Were Ringing Out For Christmas Day
by Intestines
Summary: It's Christmas Eve 1957, and Orion and Walburga Black are about to learn that the Muggle world is much bigger and more intimidating than they'd thought.


**A/N: **This was written for Eirinn Croi's _Christmas Challenge_. The challenge was to write a fic with the characters given and incorporate your favourite Christmas song. So this is inspired by and follows the story of _Fairytale of New York_. Wahey!

I'd really love it if you left a review after reading. :)

Merry Christmas!

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><p>It was Christmas Eve. As the men in the crowed bar roared with laughter and shouted jeers at the winning horse on the tiny, fuzzy television screen, the only wizard in the place fought his way through the crowd to his lover. For her part, she was painfully aware that they were the only magical people there, and winced as the Muggles' filthy hands patted her Orion on the shoulder and called to him. But as he reached her, and held his arms out to her, that familiar lopsided grin on his face and the look in his eyes that said he couldn't believe his luck, she downed the rest of her wine in one and stood up and flung her arms around his neck and kissed him, because the Muggles didn't matter; nothing mattered as long as she was with him.<p>

"Happy Christmas," he mumbled in her ear, twirling her around to cheers from the crowd, his speech slurred slightly and his eyes unfocused, apparently blissfully unaware of anything other than his horse's win. "This year's gonna be great, babe, I can feel it."

She believed him, of course, and he took her hand and pulled her into the street, where snow was whipped in the air around them and they tumbled onto the pavement in a giggling heap. And then they ran, hand in hand, through streets dusted with snow that should have been grey, but instead were alive with hundreds upon hundreds of flickering Christmas lights, the colours as bright as if real fairies had been dancing across the scene before them. At the end of the street a band was playing, a choir singing an old song about a land long lost, and for a moment she was reminded of the home she'd left.

She'd never wanted to leave; it was the home of her father and her father's father and she'd wanted to honour that, but Orion had won her over with his words, and the fire in his heart that shone through his eyes and his hunger for something more than the grey streets of London and the rainy weather.

They'd found it, now; they'd found their home. It was here, in this big city, where the Muggles were seemed stranger than the magical folks and at night the lights lit the streets as bright as day. It almost seemed magical in its own way – everything was bigger here, and glitzy and brighter and seemed a thousand times more special.

Special. That's what it was. Orion had told her she was special, that she was beautiful, that she was his princess and she could be in shows.

"They'll make you a star," he'd said.

And she'd believed him, of course. Why wouldn't she? He, too, belonged to the House of Black, and his blood was pure and her parents had told her he was the perfect man for her. And he was handsome, too, and when he laughed she never wanted him to stop. All she wanted to do was make him happy, so she'd followed him halfway across the world to be with him here.

And he kissed her again, on that street, a deep kiss, one that really meant something – she knew it did – and then they broke apart, noses cold and faces wet with snow, and laughed together, and for the rest of the night they danced on the corner of the street with the music in their ears and the serenades of passing drunkards.

Then the music stopped. The yuletide cheer seemed to vanish and within weeks the fairy lights and the snow and the music had all disappeared into the air and all they were left with was the city. It was still a whole other place, of course, but it was not so different that it mattered. It was different streets, different buildings, different walls and different clouds, but everything else was the same. Everything was, and is, grey. There's an unfinished glass of whiskey on the coffee table of their grotty living room and all she has to consider as she sits and stares at it is whether she'll be the one to finish it off, or if he will. It doesn't matter who poured it in the first place, and it doesn't matter where Orion is, because all the glasses of whiskey are the same and Orion always comes home.

Sometimes she tells him not to leave at all, but he always does, so she does too. She spends half her time in other people's beds – it doesn't really matter whose. She doesn't like them, any of them – they all smell of cigarettes and cheap booze and filthy Muggle blood but that's what every man seems to smell like around this place. But when Orion comes home and she tells him what she's done, he gets angry. She doesn't like seeing him angry, but it seems to be the only emotion he'll show these days and she'll take what she can get.

He'll yell at her: that she's a mess, a whore, too old to be acting the way she does and she'll spit in his face and tell him that she wishes she'd never come here, that she wishes she'd never gone alone with his stupid idea, that she wishes she'd never met him.

Time passes in a haze. Suddenly it's Christmas again, and children are knocking on their door, scruffy and scabby-kneed, looking small change in return for their singing. Tinsel and baubles and ruddy-faced likenesses of Father Christmas adorn the city, so it's impossible to go anywhere without remembering what time of the year it is.

One night, quite by chance, Orion staggers in, wine bottle in hand and Santa hat on head, complete with fuzzy white bauble, and flicks on the light in the dark living room, where she's sitting with her knees drawn to her chin, still contemplating that glass of whiskey.

"'Schristmas t'morrow," he slurs, stumbling to the sofa and flinging himself down beside her, the bauble on his hat flopping across his face.

She knows, of course, but had been trying to ignore it.

"C'mon, baby, gimme a smile." He raises a thumb to her cheek and tries to tug the corner of her mouth up, but he misses, taps her on the nose, and she pushes his hand away.

"You're nothing special, you know," she says, her voice rough from not speaking for days.

He eyes her in an unfocused sort of way, and then mumbles, "Never said I was."

She has to laugh at that. It's harsh and bitter and it hurts her throat, but she has to all the same.

"You must have thought it. Why else would you have come here?" she sneers. He doesn't answer, so she continues. "Did you really think you'd end up any different than _them_?" She jerks her head to the window, where the children of the lower classes fight in the streets and threaten each other with snowballs or stones or knives or guns or maybe even wands – it doesn't seem to matter any more.

Orion looks at her blearily, then sighs and mumbles something, but she doesn't know what. All she catches is "Muggles" and "fam'ly" and "for you" and then, "C'mere, I've got somethin' to show you."

Then he staggers to his feet, and pulls her up, too. He grabs a bundle of fairy lights, twisted in on itself, from the box of old decorations they'd got out weeks ago but had never gotten round to stringing up. He throws it round her, like it's some sort of gown or garland or great honour, and draws his wand and taps it and the lights blink into life. He smiles, and then laughs, but she shakes her head, because it's going to take more than a couple of fairy lights to fix things.

He seems to pick up on that, and all of a sudden he grabs her wrist and they tumble into the snowy street, which should have been dark but was instead lit up with all the festivities, and she sees that across the street a band is playing. It's a song she recognises, though she's only heard it once before, and the reflections of the lights around her neck dance in the brass of the instruments before her as she approaches them. Then she turns to look at Orion, who's lit a cigarette and is contemplating the falling snow.

"The Muggles sure know how to celebrate, don' they?" Then he looks at the ground, and mumbles, so quietly she can barely hear him above the music. "I'm sorry, babe. I never meant for it to be like this. We'll go back. Go home. Go back to how it was. I promise."

And for the first time in so long she believed him, and she kissed him, and while the music played in their ears and various other drunkards serenaded them, they danced, and remembered when they had been in love, until the clock struck midnight, and the ringing of the bells declared it Christmas Day.


End file.
